Phos Hilaron

For our midweek Advent devotionals, we've been looking at several ancient Christian hymns.  The following are the notes I used for my favorite along with two videos.  Enjoy!

John 14…

6Jesus answered, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me. 7If you had known Me, you would know My Father as well. From now on you do know Him and have seen Him.”

8Philip said to Him, “Lord, show us the Father, and that will be enough for us.”

9Jesus replied, “Philip, I have been with you all this time, and still you do not know Me? Anyone who has seen Me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? 10Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me? The words I say to you, I do not speak on My own. Instead, it is the Father dwelling in Me, performing His works.

The word of the Lord!

…

This evening, with God’s help, I’d like to spend a few minutes introducing [reviewing] what is the oldest Christian hymn known in history outside the Bible.

There are apparently ancient Christian hymns actually INSIDE the Bible – for instance scholars believe that the passage we heard a few moments ago, John 1 – John's “prologue” … was an example of one.

There are others also. 

Deep Gospel-infused Beauty

"Bach is inseparable from the words that he uses.  He's a religious composer and his outlook on life is told to us in the cantatas.  And even in the secular music, one has to embrace his worldview.  No matter how the voice leading it is so wonderful or the counterpoint is so wonderful, it goes beyond itself.  It tries to tell us a message and that message is usually complicated.  It's not quite simple.  So I think there's a lot more to Bach than the surface."

- Murray Perahia

A Communion Hymn Meditation: How Sweet and Aweful is the Place

In a few moments we’re going to sing together a favorite Isaac Watts hymn “How Sweet and Aweful is the Place.  It’s a hymn about this great parable –

He opens the first verse by describing the great and admire-able feast of Christ’s Kingdom – It is a feast that is sweet and full of awe … and one that displays the choicest foods from His stores.

And when we join together for that great feast, from our hearts, we will cry out to the Lord – “Why am I a guest?  Why did I hear Your voice inviting me here when so many others choose to starve outside?”

Watts gives us the correct answer.  The Lord replies – “The same sweet love that spread this feast drew you here.  Without it, you also would have refused and perished.”

So Watts finishes the hymn with a prayer for us to sing together.

And it is the application of this Kingdom parable.

After confessing that the only reason we’ve been invited into the Kingdom feast was the sweetness of God’s love toward us, we pray and ask Him to have compassion on the nations and to extend the call of His sweet love to all the earth.  We ask Him to constrain or draw strangers to their true home and to make His Word victorious, that it would triumph in our world.

The fact that unworthies such as we have been invited to Christ’s great banquet-feast fills us with longing to see all of His churches filled with people to join us in singing from our hearts with one voice the hymn of His redeeming grace.

Why did Israel receive the immeasurable blessings of the Covenant?  Why have we received the priceless blessings of the Kingdom?

Not because we earned it.  Not because God knew He’d get a good return on His investment.  In fact, as we’ll see – God-willing – later this season when we get to Lk 17, when we have done all we can, we will still have failed to return God any profit for what He spent on us.

By inviting us to His feast, Christ has been gracious to those who can never repay Him, just as He has called us to do.  And so the Father has exalted Him and will yet still reward Him at the consummation of all things – the resurrection of the just and the wedding feast of the Lamb.

Francis Schaeffer on Punk Rock

"Why does human life have any value at all?  Not only are you going to die individually, but the whole human race is going to die.  Someday the world will grow too hot or cold and all you people will not only be individually dead, but the whole conscious life on this world will be dead and nobody will see the birds fly.  As you know, I don't speak academically, shut off in a scholastic cubicle.  I have lots of young people come to us from the end of the earth.  And they have gone to the end of this logically.  They realize what the situation is.  They can't find any meaning to life.  It's the meaning of the words "punk rock".  I must say that on the basis of what they're being taught in schools, that the final reality is only this material thing - they're not wrong; they're right."

- Francis Schaeffer

Christmas Hymn

Advent Hymn #2: Lo, He Comes with Clouds Descending

A Ralph Vaughan Williams processional Advent Hymn.  Enough Said.

Advent Hymnody #1 - O Savior, Rend the Heavens Wide

... Another beautiful Advent hymn we hear very little of.  It is German from the early 1600's.  And in case you're thinking it is too difficult to learn, here are a bunch of kindergartners who have mastered it.  Enjoy!

"Widerstehe doch der Sünde: Stand strong against sin." BWV 54

Glenn Gould once said that Bach was the greatest architect of sound to ever live.  Here he takes us on a guided tour of Cantata 54.  Written to accompany the Lenten reading for "Oculi Sunday" from Ephesians 5.1-9.  As Gould notes, these are probably the words of our elder brother in the Faith, Johann, himself.  In it we hear and feel the swelling seduction of temptation along with the struggle and tension of dissonant chords, but then, through it all cuts the clear voice of the Spirit calling us to stand strong and overcome our enemy.

“Stand firm against all sinning, or its poison will possess you.. Those who commit sin are of the devil, for he has invented sin, but if one resists his vile shackles with true devotion, sin will straightaway take flight.”

Begbie, Music, and the Problem of Evil

Enjoy

[link: 5809909]

Worship Music and Immaturity

Musical Reformation and Emotional Maturity

Imagine a man dying of kidney failure.  Tests confirm that his cousin is a potential match.  So at the last minute, his cousin undergoes the risky procedure to donate a kidney with the hope that it will save the man's life.  It does.  And ever since, every Sunday, the two of them meet for an afternoon meal, the joy of each other's company, and to share in the experience of their "second/new" life together.

It has been many years since the surgery - several decades, in fact - and one Sunday, the cousin invites you to join them for their meal and time together.  Much to your surprise, as you pull into the driveway with the cousin-donor you see the formerly-healed man fling open the door with an ecstatic look on his face and his arms upraised in celebration.  He flies out of his house with leaps and bounds shouting at the top of his lungs and dancing in jubilation toward you.  Before your companion can fully open his car door, the man has boisterously pulled him from the vehicle in an explosive bear-hug.  He then looks at you wide-eyed and in a yelling voice recounts the basics of the story that you know already - "This is the man that saved my life by his sacrifice! He gave me his kidney!"  His shouts appear to startle the neighbors and a man down the street walking his dog.

Now remember - the surgery was over a decade ago.  And they have met every Sunday since.  So here is the question: wouldn’t you think this man's behavior odd, contrived or rehearsed, or even, in some way, inappropriate?  Yes, you would.  Why?  Because gratitude, as it deepens over time, takes a shape and expression that differs from momentary exhilaration like an old-vine Zinfandel differs from cherry Kool-aid.

Art, Music, Creation, Difference, Violence, Harmony, and the Trinity

"Creation is the work of a dynamic, three-personed God and the members of the Trinity enjoy an eternal giving and receiving among one another. The doctrine of the Trinity informs us of both the personality and the dynamism of God - qualities that are suggested in the ancient term applied to the Trinity - perichoresis. It refers to the mutual indwelling of the persons of the Trinity by extension perichoresis can be used to refer to God's relationship to the world whereby all things exist in him and through him; in him we live and move and have our being... why move?  Are we dancing when we have our being?
All of creation is somehow engaged in the life of the trinity is well.  John 17 in particular comes to mind where we read that in our growth in Christ God indwells us and we indwell Him.  So Father Son and Holy Spirit are dancing around each other and the Christian life is our entry into that dance.
Orthodox theologian David Bentley Hart notes that while God was under no necessity to create, the act of creation flows out of the infinite love that's experienced by the members of the Trinity.  Hart writes:
"God's gracious action in creation belongs from the first to that delight, pleasure, and regard that the Trinity enjoys from eternity as an outward and unnecessary expression of that love.  Thus creation must be received before all else as a gift and beauty."

For All Thy Saints in Warfare: An All Saints' Day Hymn

We don't generally pay much attention to All Saints' Day in the contemporary Protestant Church.  But that wasn't always the case.  Here is a great hymn for that occasion from the Glory to God: Presbyterian Hymnal written by Anglican hymn writer Horatio Bolton Nelson in 1864.  It is set to Vaughan Williams' beautiful King's Lynn.


1 For all Thy Saints in warfare,
for all your saints at rest,
Your holy name, O Jesus,
forevermore be blessed!
For those passed on before us,
we sing our praise anew
and, walking in their footsteps,
would live our lives for You.

2 We praise you for the Baptist,
forerunner of the Word,
our true Elijah, making
a highway for the Lord.
The last and greatest prophet,
he saw the dawning ray
of light that grows in splendor
until the perfect day.

3 All praise, O Lord, for Andrew,
the first to welcome You,
whose witness to his brother
named you Messiah true.
May we, with hearts kept open
to You throughout the year
proclaim to friend and neighbor
your advent ever near.

4 For Magdalene we praise you,
steadfast at cross and tomb.
Your “Mary!” in the garden
dispelled her tears and gloom.
Apostle to the apostles,
she ran to spread the word.
Send us to shout the good news
that we have seen the Lord!

5 We pray for saints we know not,
for saints still yet to be,
for grace to bear true witness
and serve You faithfully,
till all the ransomed number
who stand before the throne
ascribe all power and glory
and praise to God alone.

A Japanese Bach Collegium? But Why?

"The God in whose service Bach labored and the God I worship today are one and the same. In the sight of the God of Abraham, I believe that the two hundred years separating the time of Bach from my own day can be of little account. This conviction has brought the great composer very much closer to me. We are fellows in faith, and equally foreign in our parentage to the people of Israel, God’s people of Biblical times. Who can be said to approach more nearly the spirit of Bach: a European who does not attend church and carries his Christian cultural heritage mostly on the subconscious level, or an Asian who is active in his faith although the influence of Christianity on his national culture is small?”

- Masaaki Suzuki, 
on the strangeness of his life's labors to establish a Japanese Bach Collegium 

Psalter Statistics

The exact number of quotations is very difficult to determine precisely.  Some strong allusions as well as narrative fulfillments may not be reflected on this chart.

Data compiled from a number of sources here, here, and here [as well as others hard copy resources].

Sing My Tongue the Glorious Battle: A Lenten Hymn

You'd be hard pressed to find a contemporary song with a tenth the doctrinal substance or devotional force or sacred passion of this Ancient Christian Hymn.  It was written by Venantius Fortunatis in the years prior to A.D. 600 and set to an ancient Plainsong tune.

1. Sing; my tongue, the glorious battle,
sing the winning of the fray;
o're the cross the Victor's trophy,
sound the loud triumphant lay:
tell how Christ, the world's Redeemer,
as the victim won the day.

Cheap Imitations of Grace

"All the pleasures money can buy are but cheap imitations of grace."

-Jamie Soles

Song Title: Anything in Life, Album: River

White Lent

Thanks to Dr Jim Jordan for introducing us to it and the Clerk of Oxford for posting a great recording of the French Carol and Lenten Hymn: White Lent.

1. Now quit your care
And anxious fear and worry;
For schemes are vain
And fretting brings no gain.
To prayer, to prayer!
Bells call and clash and hurry,
In Lent the bells do cry
'Come buy, come buy,
Come buy with love the love most high!'

2. Lent comes in the spring,
And spring is pied with brightness;
The sweetest flowers,
Keen winds, and sun, and showers,
Their health do bring
To make Lent's chastened whiteness;
For life to men brings light
And might, and might,
And might to those whose hearts are right.

3. To bow the head
In sackcloth and in ashes,
Or rend the soul,
Such grief is not Lent's goal;
But to be led
To where God's glory flashes,
His beauty to come nigh,
To fly, to fly,
To fly where truth and light do lie.

4. For is not this
The fast that I have chosen? -
The prophet spoke -
To shatter every yoke,
Of wickedness
The grievous bands to loosen,
Oppression put to flight,
To fight, to fight,
To fight till every wrong's set right.

5. For righteousness
And peace will show their faces
To those who feed
The hungry in their need, 
And wrongs redress,
Who build the old waste places,
And in the darkness shine. 
Divine, divine,
Divine it is when all combine!

6. Then shall your light
Break forth as doth the morning;
Your health shall spring,
The friends you make shall bring 
God's glory bright,
Your way through life adorning
And love shall be the prize.
Arise, arise,
Arise! and make a paradise!

The Structure of the Psalter

One of my personal heroes is a man named Colin Smith.  He was my Hebrew prof and one of the few men by whose influence my faith was salvaged and strengthened and encouraged in the direction of vocational Christian ministry.  I recall him saying on several occasions that it is impossible to read the Psalms properly without understanding the structure of the entire Psalter and that Psalm's place within it.  He died suddenly a number of years ago and I was never able to ask him for further clarification.  But through the years, that has been a major question in my mind.  Here is a very interesting [edited] article on the relationship of the Torah, Psalter, and Matthew's gospel by Peter Leithart that may serve as a partial answer, aid, or starting point:

Jesus the Singer

Matthew is famously organized by five large blocks of teaching (5-7, 10, 13, 18, 23-25).  This hints that Jesus is the new Moses, but the Psalms too are organized into five books, mimicking the Pentateuch (1-41; 42-72; 73-89; 90-106; 107-150).  

The Psalms are a sung “Torah.”  Perhaps Matthew has drawn on the Psalms also when arranging his account of Jesus’ life.

Consider the first of Jesus’ sermons.

Psalm 1 begins with a “blessing” on the man who walks faithfully with Yahweh.  Jesus too begins with beatitudes on those who live out the righteousness of God. Both use botanical analogies for the righteous and wicked [trees, fruit, chaff, thorns].  

Psalm 1 concludes with the wicked being blown away like chaff unable to stand in the judgment.  Jesus' conclusion: His pronouncement at judgment, “I never knew you” and ”Winds blowing” down the house upon sand.

Another layer: If Matthew follows the history of Israel from Genesis through the decree of Cyrus, perhaps the Psalms roughly follow a similar sequence, moving through Israel’s history, through David and the kingdom, into exile and beyond.  There is some evidence for this.  If so, then we might expect matches between the five sermons of Matthew, the periods of Israelite history, and the books of the Psalms.  That makes sense in the center of Matthew.  Matthew 13, the third discourse, is a set of parables (maskil) on the kingdom, and the third book of Psalms begins just after a celebration of the ideal king (Psalm 72), begins with a meditation on the triumph of the wicked (Psalm 73), includes several maskil Psalms (Psalms 74, 78, 88, 89), and ends with an extended meditation on the Davidic covenant (Psalm 89).  The latter part of Matthew links with the work of Jeremiah and the coming of the exile, and the latter portion of the Psalter also sings of exile (“by the waters of Babylon”) and return.

In any case, at least at the beginning and end, the Sermon on the Mount follows the first Psalm.  And this makes one suspect that Jesus’ other sermons are also songs, and that Matthew has not only written a new Pentateuch but also a gospel story built on the musical transformation of Moses that is found in Psalms.

2014 Resolutions

1. Listen to all of Bach's Church Cantatas
2. Complete reading requirements and registration process for Biblical Counseling Certification
3. Begin Master's Coursework
4. Complete either: 1-armed pullup; BP of 225x12; or 300x1
...
5.  No library fines [cough, avert eyes, awkward clearing of throat ...]

Form, Content, Design [and Worship]

As we approach the launch of our new church webpage, I have repeatedly been reminded of this fantastic TED talk by Design guru, John Maeda: How art, technology and design inform creative leaders.

Alongside a few other dear souls, I have spent several hours over the past few months agonizing  over font selection, tiny layout details, and nearly-unnoticeable design features.  Why?  Because they are NEARLY unnoticeable ... which is to say: noticeable.  And more important: something we all know instinctively, but somehow often forget, ignore, or even intellectually deny when we come to church life:
FORM SHAPES CONTENT as John Maeda so expertly demonstrates in this video clip.

APPLICATION:  There is more to a worship song than just the lyrics.  The MUSIC matters!  Sometimes how we sing matters more than what we sing [case in point: italics].  Things like instrumentation, the minister's apparel and appearance and demeanor, the lighting, the physical atmosphere [stained glass or neon night club] - all these things matter in our churches.  And all these "external" things shape the content ["words"] of our worship.  Enjoy!